Next to No Movement on the Military Commissions Act
In 2007, only 30% of the Progressive Caucus had signed on in support of a bill to repeal the Military Commissions Act. Last March, only 11 voting House members of the CPC had added their support to H.R. 591, a bill introduced by non-CPC-member David Price to repeal the MCA. As of January 16, 2010, 12 out of the 79 voting House members of the CPC had cosponsored the bill, a number only one greater than nearly a year before, and that because bill cosponsor Earl Blumenauer joined the caucus, not because any caucus member decided to add their support to the bill. This is hardly evidence of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ wild, relentless radicalism.

Little Movement on the FISA Amendments Act
The FISA Amendments Act is a 2 year old law that permits warrantless surveillance, search and seizure against Americans, their property and their communications. On February 19, 2009 the Congressional Progressive Caucus featured a document by member Barbara Lee criticizing the FISA Amendments Act and declaring outright (page 36) that “In 2009, Congressmembers can repeal the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.”

On November 3, 2009, Rep. Rush Holt introduced H.R. 4005, a bill to reform the FISA Amendments Act by imposing short-term notification requirements for Americans spied on without warrants, by imposing limitations on “pen register” wiretapping without a warrant, and to allow recipients of warrantless orders to surrender information on Americans to challenge the validity of such an order in court. H.R. 4005 is the House version of the Justice Act, FISA reform legislation sponsored in the Senate by Russell Feingold. Rush Holt is a non-member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and not one member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has cosponsored Holt’s bill.

On October 20, 2009, Rep. John Conyers introduced H.R. 3846, a bill that also would reform the FISA Amendments Act by repealing telecommunications corporations’ immunity for violating the law and by prohibiting reverse targeting, a process under which associates of an American of interest are placed under surveillance so that information about that American can be gathered. Including Rep. Conyers himself, only six out of the seventy-nine members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have cosponsored this bill.

Reality on FISA reform continues to be mismatched with the reputation of a relentless CPC that just won’t stop in the promotion of the progressive agenda. The CPC has talked for four years now about this subject, but beyond talk it’s been almost completely inactive on the subject.

Alignment with a Progressive Slate: No Perfection and a Lot of Variation
Let’s shift focus in our evaluation from particular legislative issues to the broad progressive agenda. Without reference to what members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are doing, we at That’s My Congress have developed an index called the Progressive Action Score. It is a 0-100 score for each Representative that is equal to the % of our slate of progressive legislative actions — both votes and cosponsorships — that a member of the House of Representatives has engaged in. The higher the score, the more closely a Representative follows the path of progressivism in the Congress. A score of 100 would indicate a perfect match.

The following is a list of Progressive Action Scores as of January 16, 2010 for all representatives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

Although Rep. Maurice Hinchey comes close, no member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has a perfect record of progressivism, and there is a wide variation in the degree of support for the progressive slate, going as far down the scale as Marcy Kaptur’s 36% (let’s give Judy Chu’s lower score a pass, since she has only been in the Congress since summer and has missed some opportunities that could raise her score).

If you find your member of Congress’ name on this list and see that she or he does not support a progressive slate of policies as strongly as you might hope, don’t just mope about it. Click on that member’s name to review his or her legislative record, review the slate of legislation we reference, then make a phone call with informed questions.

More generally, if you find yourself inclined to refer to the Progressive Caucus as a lock-step, coordinated, motivated force for progressive change (or demonic possession) in the Congress, please think again.